Bleak reality of private renting in 2018
NEW HARD-HITTING STUDY LOOKS AT THE DIFFICULTIES OF TENANTS IN RENTED ACCOMMODATION ACROSS SALFORD
“I CAN’T afford to rent a house. Fact. Privately rent - I can’t afford it. If they don’t give me a council house, what am I going to do?”
For too many, this is the real story of life as a private tenant in 2018.
From sudden evictions to absent landlords, broken lifts to onemonth tenancies, flimsy newbuilds, soaring rents, repeat letting fees - as much as £90 every three months - and precarious lives lived on the edge of homelessness, researchers have for the first time painted a detailed picture of private renting in Salford.
Private tenancies are now the second most common form of housing tenure nationwide, as fewer people find themselves able to buy or get into social housing.
But while rents in Salford are steadily rising, the city remains in the 10pc most deprived places in the country.
So the council and the University of Salford set out to find out the truth about life as a tenant in the city, speaking to around 30 diverse people about the problems they face.
Their study, the first to be carried out on behalf of Salford’s new anti-poverty taskforce, spoke honestly to tenants of all ages across Eccles, Langworthy, Swinton and Ordsall, including MediaCity.
It tried to gain a snapshot, speaking both to people at the ‘lower’ end of the market and people able to afford more upmarket apartments.
Many problems, particularly around huge fees and deposits, unresponsive agents and a lack of repairs, were common across the board.
In some cases it was ‘clear,’ they found, that the amounts being charged by agencies did not match the services being provided.
And even where tenants had had positive experiences, usually they had previously had negative ones.
In the most painful cases of all, they found people living powerlessly on the verge of homelessness, their health suffering thanks to damp and mould - constantly in fear of the future.
The report, launched today, will inform Salford council’s approach to private rentals in the coming years.
Here are just some of the stories researchers heard, illustrated by examples of the conditions found by Salford council’s housing enforcement team in recent months.
‘JUST GETTING BY’
Researchers found that rising rents - particularly combined with benefit cuts - meant a great many interviewees were only just scraping through the month.
Rents among those interviewed ranged from £368 a month for a single room in a shared house in Eccles to £810 a month for a onebed flat in MediaCity, with the average rent coming in at just under £600, before often-hefty utilities and council tax bills.
One renter said she was currently spending her savings in order to cover rent, as her pension was not enough.
Meanwhile Universal Credit, the new all-in-one benefit being rolled out by the government, came up repeatedly.
“I’ve just signed on to Universal Credit, because for the last five, five-and-a-half months I’ve been working full-time,” said one single parent. But I was struggling on my own, and the childcare fees, you know, they don’t help working people out.
“I was run-down, sick all the time, snappy with my kids. It wasn’t a life. I wish that they could just let me work full-time and somehow help me out, until both children are in school. But they don’t. “This is life.” Another echoed the same sentiments.
“I used to get Universal Credit … and they’re supposed to help towards your rent, but because I was working 24 hours-a-week they deduct so much off, so it ended up that I was worse off anyway, so it wasn’t helping in a way.”
ON THE BRINK OF HOMELESSNESS...
The rising costs of rent meant more than one person told of fearing ending up on the streets due to a lack of social housing.
“I’ve come to the point where I’ve got no other option but to leave,” said one tenant who had just been told a rent hike of several hundred pounds was looming. “But how do you just leave? “Because I can’t afford to rent a house. Fact. Privately rent, I can’t afford it. If they don’t give me a council house, what am I going to do?”
Several had had notice that their flat was being sold from beneath them.
“If [the council] can’t help me, where am I going to go, am I going to end up on the streets?” reflected one woman.
“My husband says, ‘no, they have to help us,’ and I said, ‘it doesn’t always go like that because we haven’t got any babies or any
little ones, there’s just me and you.’
“So I have been really... that’s what make my brain tick more, being out on the streets.”
OR BEYOND THE BRINK
One man, Peter, told how he had lived in a bedsit for six years, during which time it had been owned by four different landlords, some of whom provided no contact details and didn’t carry out any repairs.
“Peter lived in a single room with just enough space for a bed, a cooker and fridge, a sink and a small amount of living space, with a small bathroom to one side,” recount the researchers.
“Only two rings on the cooker have ever worked and Peter usually stopped for chicken and chips on his way home after work. The owners paid for, and controlled the heating, which in the evenings was turned off between 8pm and 10pm. The cold meant you had to get into bed when the heat went off.
“Damp was always a problem and, aside from always fighting a cough, Peter had to replace numerous clothes ruined by mould.
“For this property, housing benefit was £70 a week with an additional £25 per week paid by Peter directly.”
One day he came home to find an eviction notice stuck on his door.
Resigned to - but unhappy about - moving into shared housing, the only thing he could afford, Peter quickly found it would cost £1,000 upfront to move, due to deposits and fees.
So he sofa-surfed instead, for a while, then squatted in an empty building.
“After being discovered there by the workers one weekend, Peter began sleeping rough for about eight months, before getting a bed space with a local charity.
“He is now in social housing and recently realised that after his eviction the company had never stopped collecting his housing benefit.”
‘RIDICULOUS’ FEES
Despite government moves to ban excessive letting fees, renters involved in the study had paid between £70 and £300 just to sign a contract, on top of a deposit. Once that was taken into account, those who took part had paid between £1,200 and £3,000 just to move into a new rented property. “You’re looking at registration fees, you’re looking at guarantor fees, you’re looking at application fees, you’re looking at ‘moving in on a Saturday’ fee, ridiculous things, quite frankly, but that’s the nature of the beast,” said one renter living in a shared house in Eccles that they were ‘desperate’ to leave. “As I say, I reckon £2,500. If I was to rent an unfurnished, you’d probably be talking about £3,500 to £4,000 to get something to a standard that you’d want to move in to.”
Another renter described fees as ‘the bane of my existence,’ adding that they would have to pay an exit fee on eventually moving out.
Others spoke of incessant ‘renewal’ fees.
One person renting in MediaCity told of a £90 renewal fee every three months. If they didn’t sort that out before the last month of the given period, that rose to £180.
Some tenants had even opted for completely insecure rolling one-month tenancies in order to avoid such fees.
“It’s like a rolling tenancy now, because in the old... we learnt from our mistakes. The first time we moved in, I’m not saying they conned us, but I don’t think they fully explained it to us,” said one renter.
“They basically gave us it for six months, charged us £75, then when we came to renew, it was kind of an administration function, and charged us another £75 for the signing of a bit of paper.”
‘THEM AND US’: ‘SHINY’ NEW FLATS
Like Manchester city centre, Salford has lately seen a boom in upmarket apartments - and as tenants struggle in their existing nearby homes, tensions have risen.
“It’s depressing as hell because they built an awful lot of shiny new flats,” said one tenant. “MediaCity has moved in… [my area] qualifies for less additional funding because it’s not seen as deprived anymore, but nothing has materially changed for people who live on my estate.
“In fact, if anything, it’s materially worse because they
The owners controlled the heating which was turned off between 8-10pm. You had to get into bed Tennant Peter
have as little as they always did and everything’s being geared towards the new residents and they can’t afford it.”
People renting the new apartments in and around MediaCity themselves reported being well aware of that tension.
One husband said his wife didn’t feel ‘too comfortable,’ adding: “The surrounding area isn’t great and when [she] has parked in the street, the car got keyed, the back windows got smashed, her side lights, again, got targeted a lot.
“This particular area is going into some gentrification as well. These flats have recently got refurbished, and they get lots of new people in the area. “There’s also that resentment…” For people living in Salford for years, that regeneration is increasingly being blamed for rising rents and other myriad tenancy problems, said the researchers, adding: “For some of the ‘newcomers’ there was a perception of hostility and resentment from long-standing residents.”
NEW BUILD, NEW PROBLEMS
Indeed some of the problems highlighted by tenants relate to the new-build flats themselves.
Two were struggling to control damp problems thanks to a lack of windows in their bathrooms, while another was given faulty lightbulbs when she moved in - before being told it was her responsibility to pay for new ones.
Eventually they sent someone out, who found that the builders had plastered over the recessed lighting sockets, making them inaccessible.
“So they did give in in the end and sent somebody out and the person who arrived at the property was part of the original building company and they said there was a known fault with the batch of light bulbs that had gone in and it was known by the property management company as well,” said the tenant.
“He actually had to dig the lights out of the ceiling and re-plaster because it was that stuck [chuckling], so it wasn’t just us.”
Another tenant reported the difficulties faced on moving-in day.
“So the building company are obviously separate to the people who own it and do things with it.
“They left my property in a complete mess on move in day. There were beer cans and rubbish all over my garden, there were muddy footprints and just mess left everywhere, and when I rang to complain, because obviously I was having brand-new furniture delivered and moving all my personal possessions into a really dirty house. I was told that that’s just how it is with new builds, clean it, and then move your stuff in.”
DAMP, COLD...
Mould and damp was ‘by far’ the most common problem reported by tenants in the study, closely related to heating problems or leaks.
One couple described water collecting on their kitchen floor as ‘like walking on sponge.’
“When we first moved in the roof leaked, and that was leaking for about a year before [the landlord] fixed it,” said another.
“The little girl’s room, the wall fell off… when [the landlord] eventually got it fixed, they literally just told them to slap some plaster in the holes, and now when it’s raining you can just see it getting wet again.”
Another tenant said that when they complained to their agency about the broken boiler, the agent simply removed the lock to the room in which the boiler was kept.
He regularly had to replace clothes that had grown mouldy in his wardrobe, adding that it had ‘played havoc’ with his health.
Eight of the 29 respondents had asthma that they felt had been exacerbated by their housing conditions.
One said she ‘knew for a fact’ that if she asked for improvements to her heating system, the landlord would put up her rent.
...AND BATHS SLOWLY SINKING THROUGH THE FLOOR
Dan, 31, and Cassy, 26, have an eleven-month-old and a two-yearold. It cost them £1,650 in fees and deposit to move into their apartment.
From the start there was a leak in their daughter’s bedroom. Despite repeatedly asking for it to be fixed, nothing happened until part of the wall fell off.
The landlord refused to do as advised by the builder, who said the back roof should be replaced, so instead it was just patched up.
“Their shower is a hosepipe connected to the boiler at the back of the house,” recount the researchers. “This is the worst, but not the only, plumbing problem.
“Their bath itself seems to be slowly sinking through the floor and the ceiling in the room below bows beneath it. The kitchen sink does not sit properly in the counter and feels to them as though it could simply fall through.
“They wage a constant battle against black mould in every room of the house. In addition to coughs and headaches, Dan’s mental health worker has told him that the conditions in the property are affecting him and advised them to contact the council to see if they can help them to find a new flat.
“While they struggle to save enough money for another expensive move, they decided to approach the council for social housing rather than complain about their current conditions.
“They have never contacted environmental health because ‘it puts us at risk of eviction, and we don’t want to start annoying [our landlord], because obviously, we’d have nowhere to go.’”
ABSENT
Tenants found contacting their landlord could be easier said than done.
“I think they’ve sold the flat about three times since I’ve lived in it so it changes,” said one.
“It was a lady who lived [outside the UK], then it was like a company and then the lettings agents changed, and now it’s another company…
“It’s something like something Limited, I think is my landlord. I don’t think it’s a person anymore.”
Even when tenants did manage to get hold of the relevant person, three quarters reported struggling to get general repairs done.
“Yes, it’s always… ‘tomorrow, next week. I’ve no money to do it’ …or pathetic excuses really,” said one tenant.
Another reported outright hostility: “The electric cooker, an element had gone in it and I rang him up and he went, ‘right, I’ll see what I can do then,’ and I was without this cooker for a week.
“In the meantime, my daughter was quite concerned.
“I had no cooker and she emailed him and he got very angry about that, ‘how dare you email me, I’ve not put your mother’s rent up for so many...’ … very, quite nasty email.
“To be honest with you, my daughter’s partner has been doing little bits and odds and ends that need doing because I don’t like approaching him.”
UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS
Several people either with mobility problems or small children said they couldn’t afford an apartment with a lift, or couldn’t get a ground-floor apartment.
One single mum, who had raised the issue with her property manager, said: “They advised me
to take one child down three flights of stairs and leave the child at the bottom, and then carry the other one.
“I just thought, you know, you’re beyond ridiculous.”
Another said the lift would break constantly, taking days to be repaired.
“If I said to them ‘I have a disabled son’ then they argued ‘Why did you take the flat on the top floor? Why not on the ground floor?’”
One tenant, Lutfah, had moved to Salford with her sick baby following a relationship breakdown, moving in with a relative. When the relative needed to move out, Lutfah - who had given up work to care full-time for her child - was told she couldn’t stay because she wasn’t working. In desperation, she moved into a top-floor flat.
But the lift tended to break every couple of weeks.
On one occasion she couldn’t leave the flat for four days as she would have had to take her baby’s buggy and life-support equipment downstairs.
“When she complained to the property management, they simply responded that she should not have taken a flat on the top floor,” recount researchers.
Eighteen months later, Lutfah’s baby died. She lost her living allowance as a result, and after two months her housing benefit stopped, meaning she felt going back to work in order to pay £550 a month in rent was unavoidable.
When she was interviewed by researchers, she had just signed up to an employment agency and ‘hoped she would be able to earn enough to stay in the same flat, or at least in the same area, so as to remain close to her child’s resting place.’